Friday, February 26, 2016

Because The New York Times today featured an article about how Donald Trump hires many illegal immigrants to staff his private club (formerly his home) of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, I thought I'd repost a photo essay from my blog of April 4, 2011 to give an inside view of just how over-the-top the place is, not to mention showing the portrait found inside that shows The Donald just as he imagines himself to be.

Palm Beach, I’ve noticed, is like Disney World for grown-ups—everything is bigger, better, cleaner, fancier (and more expensive) than in the real world.

The
latest example came yesterday (Sunday) when we were invited to lunch at
the Mar-a-Logo Club by a friend who is a member. (The cost, I’m told, is $150,000 initiation fee and $75,000 each year after that.)

I didn’t even know that Donald Trump
had turned his palatial (think Versailles) private home into a private
club in April of 1995. His presence is still everywhere—from the plaque
at the door to the name and crest on the paper hand towels (I stole
one) in the gold-encrusted bathrooms and on the welcome mat, to a
portrait that is apparently meant to portray The Donald at a younger age
in sports clothes.

The Mar-a-Lago Estate was built to the specifications of Marjorie Merriweather Post
(then Mrs. E. F. Hutton)and completed in 1927. (The name is Latin for
“Sea-to-Lake”—it has water views both front and back.) Three boatloads
of Dorian stone were brought from Genoa, Italy.
There were 114 rooms in the original villa. According to a “short
history” of the place, “It was Mrs. Post’s plan to bring together many
Old -World Features of the Spanish, Venetian and Portuguese styles.”

In
January of 1969 the estate was named a “National Historic Site”. After
Mrs. Post died in 1973, she left the place to the federal government
for use as a diplomatic/presidential retreat. It was pretty costly to
maintain--so in 1985, it was sold to Donald Trump who used it as a
private residence for ten years (and married his third wife, Melania,
there in 2005). Even his first wife, Ivana, used it for her ill-starred
wedding to an Italian 24 years her junior in 2008.

In April of 1995, it became the Mar-a-Lago Club.

According
to the “brief history” available at the desk, Trump has “since built a
magnificent swimming pool, an award-winning beauty salon, a world-class
spa, one grass and five red-clay championship tennis courts and a
remarkable croquet court.…Completed in 2005 is the all-new Donald J.
Trump Grand Ballroom—the interior is in a Louis XIV gold and crystal finish that is one of the finest spaces of its kind in the country.”

We joined our friends for lunch in the outdoor patio (where I ordered lobster quesadillas) and they told us that Jennifer Hudson was on the premises, resting after her recent performance on American Idol, and Joan Rivers had just checked out.

With
the Trump name plastered everywhere, it sort of seemed natural that The
Donald himself breezed in as we were eating. Wearing a baseball hat and
casual clothes, he greeted the several tables of diners, making sure
everyone was happy. I asked about the décor, having been stymied by the
mix of Spanish tiles and the Arabic-looking plasterwork. Was
it Moroccan? I asked and he agreed—Moroccan it was! (At that point
neither he nor I had read in the “brief history” that it’s actually
“Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese” all mixed together into a decadent ,
dazzling, over-the-top mish-mash that would send Mad King Ludwig
into a jealous funk. There popped into my memory a French phrase which
doesn’t really have an English equivalent. It was all a bit “de trop.”)

Later
in the afternoon we saw Trump depart, along with Melania and her
parents, their young son and an older girl who was evidently Tiffany,
the daughter he had with second wife Marla Maples.

Throughout
the estate, which we explored post-lunch, poking into rooms and peeking
behind doors, we kept encountering antique tiles with a Latin motto:
“Plus Ultra”, which translates as “Beyond the Ultimate.” This is
Mar-a-Lago’s slogan. As we left, past the gilded cupids and the large
brass lions at the gate , I was reminded of another ancient classical
slogan carved into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Midhen Agan”—“Nothing in excess”.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

One of my favorite "older woman" bloggers is Judith Boyd who calls herself the "Style Crone" and is, like me, in her seventies. She just published a blog post called "The Orange Jacket and the Concept of Erasure". Her post and her orange jacket were inspired by an essay in the Feb. 2nd New York Times Magazine, written by Parul Sehgal , on "Erasure" in which Sehgal says: “Erasure refers to the practice of collective indifference that renders certain people and groups invisible.” Judith, the Style Crone, said: "Sehgal’s focus on older women at the end of her essay was profoundly
powerful. 'There has been a blank around the lives of older women, who
report feeling invisible as they age – which is, as it turn out, more
fact than feeling.'” Judith concluded: "I learned that no amount of orange could change the fact that older women are not 'seen' in our culture."

Reading this inspired me to re-post an essay of mine that first appeared on "A Rolling Crone" on July 19, 2011 called "The Invisible (Old) Woman" Here it is:

A
couple of days ago, my husband and I were staying in an antique-filled
small hotel in Chania, Crete, which had, in the parlor, a wall of books
in many languages discarded by previous guests. (This is one of the
delights of staying in small hotels.)

I
picked up a paperback by Doris Lessing called “The Summer Before the
Dark”, published in 1973, and I finished it as we arrived in Athens on
Sunday night.

Briefly,
it’s the story of a 48-year-old British housewife and mother, Catherine
(or Kate) Brown, married to a doctor, who takes a summer off from
domestic life, because her husband is at a medical conference in Boston
and her three teen-aged children are traveling with friends in different
countries. She lets their house for the summer and begins working at a
job as a translator at conferences around the world. (Luckily, she’s
fluent in four languages.)

When
her well-paying work is over, Kate takes an American lover who is much
younger—in his early 20’s. They travel in Spain, he becomes very ill
from some never-specified disease, then she becomes ill and returns to
London alone, staying anonymously in a hotel.

By
the time she’s well enough to get out of bed, Kate has lost 15 pounds,
her clothes hang on her, her dyed red hair is coming out gray at the
roots and her face has aged dramatically. As she weakly walks around
London, even passing her own house, where her best friend doesn’t
recognize her, Kate realizes that, by suddenly aging from an attractive,
stylish, curvy redhead into a skeletal old hag in baggy clothes, she
has become invisible.

Several
times she plays this game: she walks past a group of men who ignore her
or goes into a restaurant where the waiters scorn her, then she goes
back to the hotel, puts on a stylish dress and ties her hair back, adds
lipstick and returns to the same places, where she is coddled and
admired.

I
admit that it’s plausible for a 48-year-old woman to transform herself
at will from an invisible hag into a noticed and admired woman, but when
you’re sixty, or seventy (as I am) you’re permanently in the
“invisible” category, unless you’re, say, Joan Collins or Jane Fonda.

I’ve
been noticing this “invisible woman” phenomenon with both amusement and
consternation over the years. Haven’t you had the experience of
walking into a coffee shop or a department store or a cocktail party
where everyone looks right through you and you start searching for a
mirror to make sure you’re actually visible?

Yesterday
we checked into the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens, one of the grand
old luxury hotels of the world. We arrived a bit out of breath because
there was a taxi strike and we came via subway, dragging our suitcases
up stairwells when there was no escalator.

My
husband walked in first and I was greeted on all sides: “Welcome back
Mrs. Gage!” My suitcases disappeared. Cold water was provided.

A
couple of hours later, I came down to the lobby to ask a question at
the concierge desk. There were three concierges and no other guests
waiting. The white-haired concierge was on the phone confirming
someone’s dinner reservations. The middle one was explaining to the
youngest one about the book where must be recorded all cars and busses
and pick-up times. I learned a lot about the hotel business, standing
there 18 inches in front of them, until finally one of them noticed me
and said “Oh hi! How can I help you?”

A
more fraught episode occurred Saturday in Crete at the magnificent
wedding reception of a very prominent Cretan family. Nick and I passed
through security and into the estate, up some stairs where we were
greeted by waiters with glasses of champagne and a world-class view of
the sea below. Lit by the full moon was a football-field- sized
clearing by the seaside, filled with flower-laden tables and lighted by
candles and lanterns. I stopped to admire the view, then turned toward
the swimming pool area where the family was greeting guests, but my
husband had vanished into thin air.

For
half an hour I walked around the pool area, even wandering into the
nearby yard where I thought Nick might have gone to escape the crush.
As I circled, I kept looking for a familiar face, but the only ones I
recognized were from TV and the newspapers. The predominant languages
were French and Greek, which I know (far better Greek than French), but I
couldn’t imagine plunging into one of the groups surrounding a prime
minister and blurting out in any language: “Hi, I’m the wife of Nicholas
Gage”.

At
the far end of the swimming pool, on a white banquette, was a young
woman in a long brown dress completely absorbed in her cell phone. I
decided to take the other banquette and watch the parade of Parisian
fashions pass by. Unfortunately, I had left my phone at the hotel.

Eventually
my husband re-appeared. He had gone with friends to find the lists for
our table seating. After we clambered down to the sea and found our
table, I had no trouble talking to the Greek jewelry designer on my
right and the elegant Frenchman across the table, but that first half
hour of invisibility wasn’t fun.

But
sometimes I delight in being invisible. Yesterday, I repeated a summer
ritual. I walked from Constitution Square down Hermou to a tourist shop
just below the Cathedral on Mitropouleas Street to deliver another
batch of my Greek Cat books for them to sell. Then I went to a small
restaurant called “Ithaki” where every summer I get a really good gyro
and some chilled white wine. I sit at the same table every time and
watch the owner charm the passing tourists into sitting down to eat.
I’m fascinated by the man’s ability to know each person’s language. He’s
way more skilled than the usual restaurant shills who try to lure you
in with the two or three sentences they know.

Yesterday
he charmed two pretty girls from South Africa into sitting at the table
at my left, treating them to a piece of his “famous spinach pie” as an
appetizer. Then he gathered a rollicking table of Italians and told
them which beer to order. Directly in front of me were two American
boys who had befriended two girls whose accents suggested that they came
from someplace once in the USSR. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to see
America,” I heard one of them say.

Wrapped
in my cloak of invisibility I could hear the South African girls
complaining about their parents: “If my mother ever found out!” I could
watch the American boys rather awkwardly courting the much more
sophisticated Slavic girls. I reflected that every young person should
be required to take a year off before the age of 30, to tour the world
with a backpack and sit in a taverna like this one, listening to the owner speak a medley of languages and learning about the world.

When
he brought me the (very modest) bill, I tried to tell the owner that I
come back every year because I enjoy watching him speak so many
languages so well, but he just shrugged and rushed off to greet some
Japanese tourists. I think he didn’t hear me.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

In
the “Antiques and The Arts” newspaper, some years ago, I came across a
small item that thrilled me.It said
that Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, wove textiles for wall hangings early
in her life, and when she moved to Indonesia with her son in the 1960’s, she
began to amass a collection of the vibrant batik textiles of the country.“She did not acquire rare or expensive
pieces, but rather contemporary examples that were an expression of a living tradition,
patterned with both classic designs and those of passing fashion.”

Later,
I learned, when Ann was studying anthropology at the University of Hawaii, she
tried to find ways to help craftspeople.She worked with the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and with USAID and the
World Bank, and set up micro-credit projects in Indonesia, Pakistan and Kenya
to benefit poor women making textiles.

I
have always considered textile-making (weaving and embroidery) a fascinating
art form. In many countries this is the only medium of artistic expression
available to women and the only way they can earn money.Whenever I travel, I buy textiles –ideally
from the women who created them. Now my walls are covered with antique American
quilts, Mexican huipils, Haitian voodoo flags andGreek embroidered table runners.

Most pieces
cost under $100 but they’re priceless, because they embody the maker’s artistic
talent as well as (in some cases) their religious or political beliefs and
their dreams, for example the wedding couple on a tablecloth that a young
Greek girl embroidered as part of her dowry. (The teapot is also from an Anatolian tablecloth.)

Around
1970 I got interested in antique American quilts. On our second floor stair
landing I hung a “Tumbling Blocks” quilt behind a sea captain’s chest full of
teddy bears.

The
section from an unfinished velvet and silk Victorian quilt is called “Windmill
Blades” and the large “Barn Raising” quilt on the staircase wall is from a very old variation on the
Log Cabin pattern.

Mexican
and Guatemalan embroideries fascinate me with their sophisticated and wild use
of color. I’ve decorated the wall of my studio (shown at top) with antique,wonderfully embroidered Mexican huipils. The design of each blouse indicates the native
village of the woman who wears it.

The
lady posing above with her work is Maria, whom we met in the marketplace of San
Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico.She was the
best among the many women weavers and embroiderers who crowded the
marketplace.(San Cristobal is heaven
for the collector of textiles.)

Near
the border of Guatemala I found the embroidery at left made by a Sandinista woman who
was also selling dolls with faces masked like ComandanteMarcos. The pillow at the right, made in Guatemala, looks to me like a man walking in a graveyard. Could this be a memorial or something to do with the Day of the Dead?

Daughter
Eleni, who studied folklore and mythology, introduced me to the sequined voodoo
flags made in Haiti and used in religious rites.They are usually made (and signed) by men
and they represent the gods who take possession of the worshiper.These sequin flags and the artists who make
them are taken very seriously as art now, which means they can be very
expensive. The
two large ones represent La Sirene—-The Enchantress—and Baron Samedi—who
mitigates between life and death.

Textile
artists reflect the life they see around them—the Greek wall hanging is an
island scene with table, chairs and cat.The
festive wedding scene (brought from Pakistan by Eleni) shows a wedding party
celebrating beneath an umbrella.

This
exquisite, antique Chinese embroidery (now framed under glass) was in a box of textiles that I bought for $75.The detailed work and the wonderful
reproduction of all those birds, animals and flowers make it beyond price.
The knots are so small, I think it mustinclude the “forbidden knot” that would make the sewers eventually lose their sight.

Finally there is lace: a simple lace handkerchief and lace runner that I'm told represents French cathedrals. It may sound silly to buy pieces like this for a few dollars and then spend a great deal more to frame them, but I do it, because I consider them found art.

It
cost a lot more than a few dollars when I encountered this stunning set of
Madeira lace work – ten place mats and a table runner—at a summer yard sale
near our village common.They came with
their own blue brocade carrying case plus a handwritten note that it was “Made
on the Island of Madeira for the Beede Family, makers of Madeira Wines”.

I
couldn’t resist, telling myself it was for a daughter’s trousseau, but let’s
face it, young women today have no use for fragile lace tablecloths, napkins and embroidered linens,
so the fine Madeira set now lives with the “turkey work” embroidered pillow
shams, the hand-smocked baby dresses (mine! from 75 years ago!). and the
Dresden Plate quilt that my grandmother made for my mother’s wedding in 1932—all
stored in tissue and special boxes, hidden under my bed.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

All winter I've been going out on the balcony in New York looking for snow but nothing happened.

Then
at the end of January, Yiayia and Papou said that we should come down
to South Beach, Miami for a long weekend because Papi was traveling in
Asia on business.

Here we are in the airport: Mommy, Nicolas and me.

When
we got to the apartment in South Beach where we lived when I was born,
Nicolas took a nap in the courtyard while Mommy worked and I rode my
bicycle around.

It has three wheels and gives directions in Spanish.

Inside the apartment I showed Papou and Yiayia what I had learned in gymnastics and yoga.

One day we went to Flamingo Park where I rode on the dinosaur that used to scare me when I was little.

And went down the big curvy slide

While Mommy and Nicolas sat under the Banyan tree

Then we all rode on the little train. I was the engineer.

Later we went to Espanola Way and had crepes at A La Folie. I made a design out of the sugar packets.

Then we went to the gelateria place nearby.

I got strawberry. I always get strawberry.

On another day we went to Lincoln Road and I did crafts at Books and Books with my Miami friends Eleni and Phaedra.

I colored this purse. Do you like it?

On Lincoln Road, Nicolas liked to crawl around on the grassy knoll.

And
at night on the grassy knoll I would shoot off into the sky rockets
with colored lights, sold by the rocket man, while behind me a man was
dancing and vogue-ing.

We were supposed to fly back on
Sunday but all the flights were cancelled because of a huge snowstorm in
New York, so we went to Eleni and Phaedra's house for dinner and their
Mommy cut the King cake.

Finally on Tuesday we got on a
plane for New York and Nicolas screamed and made a big fuss until Yiayia
showed him Peppa Pig on her phone.In New York there
were huge piles of snow everywhere and the cars were all stuck in the
snow. After school on Wednesday,outside our apartment building, Yiayia
and I made our first snowman of the winter.

A Rolling Crone

After 40 years as a journalist, I turned 60 and decided to return to my first love--painting. I’ve exhibited watercolors and photographs in Massachusetts and have a slide show of paintings below. My photo book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” can be purchased by clicking on the cover below.
I collect way too many things, but my great passion is antique photographs, from the earliest—daguerreotypes (circa 1840) up to 1900 (cabinet cards, tintypes.) I approach each one as a mystery to solve, and in unlocking their secrets have met some fascinating historic figures. For some of the stories, check the list of “The Story Behind the Photograph”.
My husband Nick and I live in Grafton, MA and recently celebrated our 41st anniversary. We have 3 children, now amazing adults. And on Aug. 26, 2011, we greeted our first grandchild, Amalía-- world’s cutest baby. But this blog isn’t about grandparenting (although photos of the grandkid sneak in). As it says up top, it’s about travel, art, photography and life after sixty. And crone power.